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About

Hello! I’m Martin Grider. Chesstris.com is my game development blog and sometimes web development playground. The name is a mashup of Chess and Tetris, a game idea that eventually turned into my first iPhone game, ActionChess.

More information about me can be found all over the web (including on my resume at martingrider.name). I have been developing games and VR experiences in Unity since 2015, but before that I worked primarily on iPhone applications (my first one was ActionChess released for iOS 2 in early 2009). The first 10 or so years of my career was programming server-side web development. Since then I’ve written games in Objective-C, and C++, Unity, and also dabbled in a bunch of other environments, including Processing, OpenFrameworks, Unreal, SFML, PuzzleScript, and at least one project using OpenGL ES calls directly. I’m passionate about mobile game development and game design for video games and board games. I’m also a member of the IGDA, and help organize our local Twin Cities chapter. In 2014, I presented at GDC in San Francisco on Usability Lessons from Mobile Board Game Conversion.

For most of my games, I take inspiration from action puzzle games (like Tetris), and board games (especially abstract strategy and “euro” games). I imagine there is a tangible link between abstract strategy and action puzzles, both in simplicity of design and concept, as well as how these styles of game focus the player’s thoughts into a repetition of their specific logic. This similarity directly influenced the name of my game studio Abstract Puzzle.

Bibliography

Joggernauts, for Space Mace Games (2018) – Worked on this cooperative autorunner / puzzle platformer. Released 2018-10-11 on Steam and Nintendo Switch! Here’s the launch trailer.

HTC Vive Superbowl projects with Visual (2017-2018) – Two short (2-minute) experiences shown to the public as part of the festivities when the superbowl was in MN in Feb. 2018. These were client projects, one for Be the Match, the other for Midwest Dairy. I presented these projects at MinneDemo 29 on July 12, 2018.

Donuts in Space (2017) – A simple 3D action game made for the Donutron. You play as a donut rolling around on a giant donut floating in space, collecting mini-donuts. Includes two-player split-screen head-to-head multiplayer. Awesome soundtrack by Troy Strand.

Various NIH Grant-funded games for Moai Technologies (2016-2018) – These include Memory Matters, a touchscreen game to help with memory loss, as well as an Apple TV game played on an exercise bicycle with cadence sensor integration.

Hiway VR Hockey (2016 & 2017) – A hockey goalie game for the HTC Vive. This was shown in the lobby of actual hockey games at the booth of MN Wild sponsor Hiway Credit Union. The owner and goalie of the MN Wild played it on a FOX Sports TV spot.

Soil Nutrient Game (2016) – A large (48″) touchscreen game about soil nutrients for the Nebraska State Fair.

Slide Quest (2014) – Universal iOS game inspired by Threes! It re-imagines the swipe mechanics that game popularized combined with an RPG character and theme. The artwork for is from the Oryx 16-bit fantasy sprite pack.

Catchup (2014) – Universal iOS version of this 2-player abstract strategy game designed by Nick Bentley. I worked with Tysen Streib again on the AI, and music/SFX were created by Tori Kamal. This started out as an excuse to write the asynchronous multiplayer code (it uses Game Center), but ended up a fairly full-featured board game conversion.

Oppo-Citrus (2012) – My take on the opposite of Tetris. This was my original concept and I did all the coding, with graphics and additional game design by August Brown, and music/SFX by Tori Kamal. (All the SFX were made with real fruit!) Sadly, the game needs some major work to bring it back to life for all the new screen resolutions and iOS versions, so it was removed from the app store sometime in 2016.

Tic Tac Math (2010) – I developed the original version of this app, as well as the second (Universal) release for IPMG while working at Clockwork. Update: In 2015 I updated all the TicTacMath games in the app store, as well as created a new “Trilogy” app that includes Basic Math, Fractions, and Algebra question types, as well as added statistics.

ActionChess (2009) – This was my first iOS app, as well as the inspiration for this domain name. It was my original idea, and one that I still think hasn’t reached its full potential. (Yet!)

Go-Tetris! (2007) – This was my first game, written in ActionScript 2.0. It was also my first (and last) flash app of any kind. It’s my original idea, and I did all the graphics as well as development. I’ve since worked on versions for both native iOS and Unity. The idea will hopefully see a wider release… someday.

Eigenstate (2016) – An abstract strategy game where the movement of your pieces is augmented at the end of every turn.

Entanglement (2015) – A two-player abstract strategy game with very simple mechanics playable in 5 to 10 minutes.

Xit (2014) – A two-player abstract based on the Tixel family of board games originally devised by Martijn Althuizen.

Mystique Pillars (2014) – A simple card game for 2-6 players using the Mystique Deck, a card game system with 60 cards. This game was one of 13 games published in the “12+1 games for the Mystique Deck” book.

Root Down (2013) – An abstract strategy game designed to use pieces that “activate” other pieces. I created a quick-and-dirty app to facilitate playing this (see above).

Spice (2011) – An abstract game using the Shibumi game system. Spice is based on another game called Ketchup. Spice was selected as one of the best 30 games for the Shibumi system, and included in a book on the subject.

SIX D SIX (2011) – This is actually a game “system”. I challenged myself to design a bunch of games (ended up with six) that use dice but do not feel random in their outcomes. (BGG)

Talks & Presentations

HTC Vive Superbowl projects with Visual (2018) – I put together a short talk about these two VR experiences, and presented it twice. The first time at MinneBar 13 as part of a Game Dev Microtalks session (which I also helped organize), where I spoke over a screen recording of the two projects. The second time was at MinneDemo 29 in front ~700 folks at the Ordway theater. That time, we actually had someone in the headset doing both of the experiences “live” on stage.

VR Development with Unity, Training (2018) – I helped organize and presented at a two-day seminar on using Unity to create Virtual Reality projects at the Digital Technology Center at the University of Minnesota. The first day was a series of hour-long talks, where I presented a general talk on Unity capabilities for VR, as well as a selection of VR projects I’ve worked on in the last couple of years. (There were also presentations by Ioannis Nompelis, Patrick Swinnea, and Zach Wendt.) The second day was a hands-on workshop where the attendees created two projects “from scratch”, a 360-video player targeting google cardboard, and then a room-scale VR experience for the HTC Vive. I wrote and presented those second-day course materials.